


Apocalypse Angel

by OneOddKitteh



Series: Apocalypse Angel [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Gabriel Lives, Happy Ending, Hurt Gabriel, Implied Castiel/Dean Winchester, Kinda, Mild Blood, Mild Gore, References to Metatron, References to Norse Religion & Lore, Rituals, Sacrifice, Saving the World, Trickster Gabriel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-23
Updated: 2014-04-23
Packaged: 2018-01-20 12:39:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1510754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OneOddKitteh/pseuds/OneOddKitteh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a last ditch effort to kick Metatron's ass and fix up the whole mess, Dean, Sam, and Cas try a ritual that seems like it'll fix everything. There's a catch- It requires the grace and life of a willing archangel. Seeing as those aren't on ready demand, Castiel steps up to volunteer. </p>
<p>No-one's really happy with that idea. Enter a willing, live archangel.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Apocalypse Angel

**Author's Note:**

  * For [angelivenantium](https://archiveofourown.org/users/angelivenantium/gifts).



> I might add to this verse in future. For now, enjoy the product of much angst and post-writing editing!

Sam and Dean were fixing the last few sigils, grim faced and resigned. Cas stood watching on, shifting awkwardly from foot to foot, the human motion almost disconcerting when Dean looked up.

“Done,” he said quietly.

There were no jokes. It was a last-ditch effort, the last chance they had to kick Metatron’s ass out of heaven, to put things back the way they were. The ritual was hard to set up and even harder to finish. They had everything ready, the ingredients mixed in the bowl with Sam’s hands, despite his light griping about the goat blood all over his hand. Dean crossed the lines, careful not to smudge any of the painstakingly painted writing on the floor of the warehouse. Cas’ eyes met his and flicked away again.

“It’s time?” he said.

Dean tried to memorise the gravelly tone, the carefully enunciated words. He thought that maybe the lump in his throat could be explained away by nerves, his incessant hope that the ritual would work. Stolen grace from a regular little angel wasn’t exactly the willing grace of an archangel, but perhaps it would be enough. Perhaps Cas wasn’t making a pointless sacrifice in the bare hope that it might work.

“It’s time,” Dean said softly, so that his voice couldn’t crack.

Cas surprised him, wrapping his arms tight around Dean, face buried in the hunter’s shoulder. Dean didn’t respond for just a second. A little whimper echoed in his throat, as he let his arms slip round the angel, holding them tight together for an indeterminable time. The ritual could wait long enough for the goodbyes to be given. Once they split apart, still silent, Cas turned to Sam, and immediately pulled him into a tight hug. Sam returned it immediately, clutching Cas to him for a few precious seconds before stepping back. Dean thought Sam looked like he was sending a brother off to war, light glinting off the water on his cheeks.

Sam and Cas were brothers. Cas was Dean’s… Dean’s best friend, and he was going to die for them. Again. Dean watched Cas walk carefully to the table and pick up the knife. He’d do it quick, get it over with. He wouldn’t make them wait any longer.

 

Gabriel was angry. He watched, as he’d watched for the years past. He watched, and he heard, and he was angry. He acted, with a desperation that he normally associated with human idiocy.

“Hi boys,” he called, faux cheer staining the sacrificial atmosphere in the warehouse they’d set up in. “I see you’re on a pointless little suicide mission again.”

Dean had a gun pointing at him before he could finish the sentence, as if he thought it’d do something. Desperate, stupid, stupid human. Gabriel snapped his fingers, popped his hip out and sat a hand on his waist as he stared disapprovingly at the altar, and sigils scrawled on the ground. It was perfect, just waiting for the last little poke to set it into action. It seemed so harmless, but there was a tidal wave of energy needed to get it going. And they were going to try to do it with Cas' grace, he thought scornfully. Senseless.

“You’re all fucking idiots,” he said loudly over his shoulder, staring at the set up on the table. “I mean, you’re not just trying to use the broken, cut-off, stolen grace of a baby angel in the place of an archangel, you’re using it for a spell that doesn’t know when to stop taking. Cas here had no idea what the last part requires, let alone what he’d have to do to keep you safe.” He frowned. Stupid fucking humans. “If you’d have gone through with this, it would’ve wiped out half the galaxy.”

He turned to the three of them all, as they stared fearfully back, mouths taped shut, unable to move from their sitting position.

“Now I know we’re all wondering how I’m alive. Story time, class,” he said with a wide grin that never reached his vessel’s eyes.

The offensively pink beanbags were straight from a kindergarten classroom, and the three full grown men looked ridiculous perched awkwardly on top.

“Once upon a time,” he started chirpily, “a big douchebag in the sky created the heavens and the earth. He then made angels, his loving children, etc. etc. etc. He created people, through a long and boring process of evolution, and loved them very much. But one day he decided that the humans were almost as boring as his angels, the little foot soldiers he had, so he decided to introduce free will and evil.”

Dean was glaring murderously at him. Cas and Sam had identical masks of perturbed curiosity, students listening in on a crazed lecture. Gabriel stared at them, making eye contact until they looked away, uncomfortable. He resumed his monologue with a wild smile.

“My daddy charged an angel with letting an evil creature into his perfect Garden, knowing that it would introduce choice to his little human creations. He was delighted with the results. Knowing that he would need his angel to continue the work, he blamed the deed on another.”

He met Cas eyes, murmuring it directly to his little brother.

“Gabriel and Gadreel, they sound similar in this tongue, don’t they?” he asked quietly.

Cas stared back accusingly, eyes screaming the betrayal he felt. Gabriel looked away first, tiredness aching through his vessel like poison. Castiel, the little angel that could, so full of anger, never sure where his anger should be aimed. Schooling his face back into jovial madness, Gabriel kept talking. He had to let this out, couldn’t be the only one who knew.

“Eventually, the one the humans called God, he decided it was time to put another piece of the puzzle in place. He ordered his little obedient angel to leave Heaven, and live with the pagans. Gave me a facelift, wiped Loki out, and told me to stay.”

He slipped into first person almost accidentally, confusion and hurt slipping into his voice.

“I lived there for a while. He graciously let me dream, let me see my brothers. As if that was any better than not knowing, watching them tear each other apart. I watched my brother take his free will for a stupid cause, and watched my father send Michael to throw him into a cage because only his little precious humans were meant to have choice. His little toy soldiers were nothing, pawns to make the world right for his “children.”

Gabriel used finger quotes, spitting the word out with an ugly sneer, almost taking a sick pleasure in the way the three men in front of him flinched. He took a long, deep breath, letting the silence ring on, calming him down. There was no sense in getting angry. He wanted them to remember this, not lose it in a fog of fear.

“He told me to find a way to kill the boy who couldn’t be killed. I told myself I didn’t know any better, and deceiving people had almost become second nature in my pagan life. I did it. I began the end of their world, and in retaliation, they tied me up with the entrails of one of Loki’s kids. Wasn’t one of mine, funny enough. They passed mine off as chaos monsters, rather than nephilim. Don’t even know if they’re still alive.”

Gabriel paused, frowning. He’d missed them, but a family reunion wasn’t exactly possible, or a good idea. He pushed the upwelling of regret back, knowing it would flood him. Instead, he continued the story, lost himself in his little confession.

“Dad left me there, y’know, Cas,” he said softly. “Tied to my vessel, feeling everything. He left me there, causing incredible earthquakes every single fucking time she had to empty that damned bowl. She knew who I was, and she did her best for me anyway.” He paused, glancing back up at Cas’ eyes.

His little brother wasn’t glaring anymore, but frowning, brow furrowed.

“He left me there, till he needed me again,” he said quietly.

The humans were straining to hear, but Cas was just staring from his enforced seat.

“He came back after what felt like millennia, and he destroyed her. He set me free, and told me I was to begin another apocalypse.” Gabriel looked up with a small proud smile. “And I took the free will I wasn’t meant to have, and told him to shove it up his holy ass. I fucked off, built myself my own vessel, and carved a few protection sigils into my grace. I don’t think it actually worked, to be honest, but it was the principle of the thing. I didn’t toy with his precious little ending game, and he left me alone, because they all thought I was dead anyway. I became a trickster, buried myself in him until I could pretend I’d forgotten. And then you Winchesters came along, bringing your little apocalypse problem with you. You fucking played right into their hands, and started the whole mess again.”

His face grew ugly again, anger dripping from his words.

“I couldn’t just let it go. You were carrying more issues and bitterness than the freakin’ Clause’s. Who I hear you boys killed, good effort,” he added with a little sneer. “I couldn’t let you sit there, and be their little toys, Daddy’s little toys. So I played with you. Tried to teach you a lesson.

He met Sam’s glower with a sardonic twist of his lips.

“Sorry ‘bout that one, Sammy boy,” he drawled. “Didn’t realise your little co-dependence issue was so completely… pathetic.”

And Cas was back to looking betrayed, as though expecting pretty words and proper apologies for everything Gabriel had ever fucked up.

“Then you found out who I’d been,” he said. “And you pulled me straight back into the bitchfight. Threw me back among a room of people who’d like nothing more than to tear me apart, and scatter my remains across the universe. And Lucifer stabbed me. You should know that dying sucks shit for us. It’s agonising, you can feel your grace and consciousness shatter, before you just stop existing.”

He shuddered, sighed, and ran a hand through his vessel’s hair.

“Ten minutes later, I’m alive, in fucking France for no damn reason, and with a firm ward keeping me away from America. It took me months to even want to come back, let alone to find a way to come back. But y’know, the accents get a little annoying over there.” He let a little grin slip onto his face, as real as he could let it be.

“But I stayed, and watched my brothers fall,” he told them frankly. He met their eyes, one pair after another. “And I came back. Thankfully in time to stop you numbskulls from destroying what you’re trying to fucking save. Anyone would think you’re on their side.” He rolled his eyes at them all, turning back to the table and making sure everything was in place.

“And now I get to die again,” he muttered. “The things I fucking do for humanity.”

He picked up the knife, spinning it in his hand to accustom himself to the weight.

“I have an apartment in New York,” he called over his shoulder. “It’s under Gabriel Winchester. You’re listed as family. Google me, you’ll find it. Feed my dog for me, yeah?”

He muttered a few words in Enochian under his breath, enough to protect his brother and the humans from any fallout, enough to keep it constrained to the circle. The Winchester’s had tried to protect themselves, but Cas didn’t know the spells like Gabriel did, and whatever knowledge the humans had wasn’t enough to portray the destruction such a ritual was capable of. He wasn’t even sure if Cas had known the ritual, known how agonising it was to be the sacrifice. His father had left the angels an out, a way to make the right choice, but he made it painful. He made it punishment. Gabriel would take it, because if anyone had fucked up, it was him. He had a chance to make it all right.

“Also, someone stab Metatron’s human ass for me when he drops,” he called over his shoulder, an afterthought. The bastard was the cause of this part- the reason Gabriel was dying. Prick.

With the goodbye, he put the knife to his arm and began to cut. He made an ugly slit, wrist to elbow. The blade felt like a tender stroke on his skin, no more painful than the touch of silk. His vessel’s lifeblood began to seep into the bowl, rushing from him in bursts, in time with his heartbeat. It wasn’t the part that would kill him. The blood was simply to tie his presence to the ritual. There was no going back, no backing out. He took a deep breath, and manifested his blade.

As the human blood spilt from the vessel, he pulled his shirt open with one hand. He closed his eyes and forcefully closed Dean and Sam’s so they wouldn’t end up blind. Each cut he made was like a searing hot slap to the face. Grace shone in the edges of the cuts, waiting dormant inside him, ready for the ritual to take it. He wasn’t built for pain, but he felt it, burning worse than the venom of Skadi’s snake in his eyes. With the last addition, the symbol began to have an effect on him, pulling an unwilling whimper from his throat. Gabriel sank to his knees, blood still spilling from his left arm. He fought to get his shirt off completely, but got caught, struggling to move past the burning throbbing of his grace as it concentrated on his human spine.

A wave of agony hit, and he vaguely realised that he was crying out. He could feel his back moving, the skin rippling, something growing too fast, too fast. The breath that was normally unnecessary came rapidly, his chest heaving with sobs as the skin began to tear in six places down his spine. The shirt finally slipped past his elbow, and he sank forward, forehead on the concrete floor, screaming into the stone. Every particle of his grace, of his being, was being forced into his vessel, every ounce of energy condensing into a form too small, too fucking small. Everything hurt, it hurt and it burned, and Gabriel could do nothing but scream into the ground and let the wings burst from his body, alien limbs flaring out as they grew, thrashing behind him. Finally they were free, the six that would be largest on his true form, so tiny now. They were heavy on his back, three pairs of tired, throbbing wings where wings shouldn’t be.

Gabriel lay there for a few seconds, regained his breath. He hadn’t meant to scream. Sam and Dean were straining against his hold on them, despite not being able to see a thing. Dean to escape and Sam, Sam was aching to run towards Gabriel. The foolish, compassionate bastard. Cas sat still, resigned. Too tired to reassure them, unable to reach out with grace and vessel’s throat raw, Gabriel hauled himself to his feet. He leant heavily on the table. His breath hissed out through his teeth. He had to control the pain, if he slipped now, the ritual would explode.

“Ouverte, dégagement, délier” he murmured in the first language that came to his head. “Jag offrar mig själv för slutet på slutet.”

For a few seconds Gabriel blacked out. He came to standing up, holding onto the table with a white-knuckled grip. He moaned, low and continuous. The pain tore through him till it became numb, till he was barely lucid past the haze of hurtwrongbad.

“Je donne tout, accepte le sacrifice et permets le monde pour mener à bien son éternité,” he sobbed, slipping back into French.

He felt his grace ripping from him, and screaming the entire way, his conscious was gone. The warehouse filled with blinding light and echoed with his screams. And it was over.

 

Sam could tell the second that Gabriel’s power over them broke, as blinding light filled the room, and Gabriel’s last, agonised scream cut off. With relief, he'd passed out where he sat. Dean and Cas must've too. They’d come to lying on the floor, all three of them. Dean had immediately asked Cas if he was ok, already having looked over Sam while the younger man had tried to wake up. He felt like he’d been hit by an asteroid.

Cas little gasp of shock caught his attention, the awed “my grace is my own,” pulling his head round to face the angel.

Dean didn't let go of Cas’ hand after he’d helped him up, and Sam turned away, smiling through the shellshock. They’d be fine.

He finally looked towards the altar, fearful of what he’d see there- or what he wouldn’t. There was blood spilt all over the table, all over the ground, and Sam was walking forward before he’d even thought it through. Gabriel’s vessel lay limp on the ground, back torn and bloodied, wrist slit. There was none of the presence Sam instinctually equated to an angel, not even a dead angel. He looked broken, human.

“Dean,” Sam called, unable to look away. “Cas!”

He couldn’t see their reaction, staring instead at the light movements of Gabriel’s chest. It clicked like the trigger of his rifle.

“Dean, get over here, now,” he yelled, dropping to his knees beside the still body. He tore off his flannel even as he was speaking, using it to make a rough tourniquet around Gabriel’s left arm. His other shirt was held to the gaping wounds on Gabriel’s back, Sam trying to stop the bleeding that looked like it would never end. “He’s alive!”

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr is oneoddkitteh. Visit there for irregular updates on current projects and drabbles and stuff!


End file.
